Students with reading disabilities in middle and high school grades need as
sistance in content-area reading to integrate new information with their pr
ior knowledge, to obtain important information from the text, and to rememb
er what they have read. Thus, content area reading instruction is an import
ant component of all secondary curricula and includes strategy instruction
in word identification, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. The purpose o
f this article is to present an overview of the components of content-area
reading instruction and to describe instructional strategies that can be us
ed to teach students with reading disabilities how to approach content area
reading.